A Reason to Care

A good story gives the reader a reason to care what happens to the characters.  The story causes the reader to recognize feelings and situations, phrases and conversations. They feel personal and familiar, even if the story is a fantasy or if it takes place in another part of the world.

In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck the main character Wang Lung’s desire for wealth and status clashes with his simple respect for the earth and his adherence to old Chinese traditions. The reader feels his desires and hopes and frustrations, and experiences his mistakes.  The reader cares what happens to him and his family.

"But Wang Lung thought of his land and pondered this way and that, with the sickened heart of deferred hope, how he could get back to it. He belonged, not to this scum which clung to the walls of a rich man’s house; nor did he belong to the rich man’s house. He belonged to the land and he could not live with any fullness until he felt the land under his feet and followed a plow in the springtime and bore a scythe in his hand at harvest."

In Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea the reader hears Santiago's inner thoughts and dreams. The reader witnesses a three day struggle with a marlin, the largest fish of his career.  The struggle reminds the reader of every difficult thing he has endured, and those feelings make Santiago's struggle feel personal.

"He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy."